


aftershocks

by 3ghosts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Getting Back Together, Heartbreak, M/M, brief Ignis/male OCs, brief Noctis/male OC, sex scandal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3ghosts/pseuds/3ghosts
Summary: The first time Ignis falls in love with a boy, it ends painfully, without closure, and leaves his heart bleeding for a very long time.They say you always remember your first. They never really tell you about what comes after.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 22
Kudos: 118





	aftershocks

The first time Ignis falls in love with a boy, it ends painfully, without closure, and leaves his heart bleeding for a very long time.

The boy had been a fantasy, safe and beautiful and honest. He had a penchant for late-night movies at the downtown cinema—always picked cinnamon sugar donuts over popcorn, always reached out to hold Ignis’ hand in the darkness all the way through the movie.

He is so many things: stubborn to a fault, tricky with emotion, amazing in bed. _Incredible_ in bed. But, ultimately, unattainable.

Ignis hadn’t meant to fall in love with him.

They say you always remember your first.

The second time he falls in love, it’s harder and easier at the same time.

His second is a better fit: calm and collected. Charming. Just one year his senior, but mature and sweet enough to respect Ignis’ unpredictable schedule. Ignis receives delightful gifts out of the blue—red roses sent to his office at the Citadel, parcels filled with fine chocolates and rare teas delivered to his home.

It’s a real treat to be doted on, and for a handful of wonderful weeks, it almost feels like this is something that Ignis can get used to.

But.

But it’s too much. Work comes first. Work _always_ comes first. And Ignis will _always_ put his job above anything else. Everything else. Even love.

Especially love.

And so, after two tender months with Dante, he moves on. Another distraction gone. And Dante gives him up without a fight—he understands that he can never compete with the one true constant in Ignis’ life. He knows he can never compete with the Prince of Lucis.

You always remember your first, they say. But losing his second had been the saddest Ignis had ever felt.

It’s not that Ignis resents Noctis.

Noctis, as capricious as he is, is as important to Ignis as breathing. And while they don’t always see eye-to-eye, Ignis has never forsaken his job, and he has never—not _once_ —gone back on his promise to King Regis.

And Noctis, for better or worse, knows this.

He knows how Ignis sees him.

The third time he falls in love, it lasts long enough that the prince takes an interest.

“So, what makes this guy so special?” Noctis had asked him one day, sudden and unexpected, while they’d been hanging out in Noctis’ apartment, Ignis in the kitchen, chopping tomatoes and onions and basil.

“Is it really any of your business?” Ignis’d said, and in hindsight, he knows it had been the wrong thing to say. He distinctly remembers the sound of the rain that evening, ugly and distracting, hitting the balcony doors in thick sheets. Heavy storms have been drenching Insomnia as of late. It’s the season for it.

Noctis had given him a lopsided grin before sauntering off into the depths of his messy bedroom and disappearing for the rest of the night.

Ignis hadn’t really known what to do after that. He’d left Noctis’ dinner in the fridge with a note: “Reheat on the stove if you’re hungry”, and he knocks twice on Noctis’ door to say goodnight before he leaves. Noctis had said goodnight back, but hadn’t come out to see him go.

He drives out into the storm and to the townhouse that sits on the edge of the city limits, all the while watching the lightning that flashes across the sky in angry, scrawling lines.

That night, Ignis makes love to Felis. He calls off the relationship in the morning.

Sometime after that, Noctis gets a boyfriend. He doesn’t even hear it firsthand from Noctis himself. Prompto had come to drop Noctis’ work things off at the apartment—the two work the same shift at _The Salty Trout_ a few blocks away—and Ignis just happened to be there at that moment.

“Ah, he’s gone on a… date?” Prompto tells him, and he sounds extremely uncomfortable talking about it.

“Oh. A date.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ve seen them. They’ve been going out for weeks,” Prompto rambles, looking everywhere but at Ignis. “Noct really likes this guy. And he checks out. I mean. I don’t _know_ if he checks out, I’ve only met him once… they’re keeping it on the down-low, but Noct clearly thinks it’s fine to see him.” He pauses, and he looks like he wants to say more, but then he plucks at his wristband and shuffles his feet. “Damn. You’re going to want to do a background check now, huh? Noct’s going to _kill_ me.”

Ignis doesn’t know a _thing_ about Noctis being in a relationship. And it bothers him, that Noctis would keep something so important from him.

“He was never going to tell me?”

Prompto gives him a pleading look. “He said you’d do the, um, ‘Ignis’ thing and put duty over friendship and— I dunno, man. I didn’t… _pry_ or anything, but he seemed to think you’d get pissed at him.”

“I—” Ignis cuts himself short because of the sudden irrational anger he feels. He doesn’t even know where it’s coming from.

Prompto looks at him like he wants to help. But the next words out of his mouth make Ignis feel worse. “He _likes_ this guy, Iggy. He doesn’t want to mess things up. He really doesn’t.”

Ignis gets that.

He gets it.

He just doesn’t get why Noctis isn’t willing to trust him with that knowledge.

“His name’s Lasalle.”

“You like him.”

“I like him a lot.”

“How old is he?”

“Are you really going to do this?”

“Believe me, I don’t want to do this.” And he _doesn’t_. He doesn’t want to know about how Noctis is in love with someone, some stranger, someone Ignis has never heard of. He doesn’t want to hear any of it. But this is Noctis. His constant, his job. His oldest friend.

“… He’s twenty.”

Noctis is eighteen.

“He’s older.”

“For fuck’s _sake_ , Ignis. You’re one to—”

“I hope he’s treating you right.”

“… Yeah. He is.”

“I hope you’re happy.”

“I am.”

He meets Lasalle, for the first time, by accident. Noctis probably hadn’t intended for the encounter to happen, but Ignis walks into Noctis’ apartment one afternoon and finds both Noctis and his friend on the couch, intertwined in a somewhat compromising position.

“Oh. Hey.” The huge grin on Noctis’ face vanishes as soon he spots Ignis. He scrambles off of Lasalle, and off the couch completely. “Specs. Specs, you’re early.” He sounds disappointed. There’s no trace of happiness on his face. His cheeks are flushed pink, his breathing is heavy.

Ignis holds up the shopping he did earlier. Wild-caught barramundi. The whole fish had cost him over three thousand yen at the wet market. “Dinner. It’ll take some time to prepare.” He gives Noctis a look. “Will your friend be joining us?”

“No! Uh, I mean—ah,” he makes a perfunctory gesture with one hand, “Lasalle, this is Ignis. Ignis, Lasalle. And, um, no.” He eyes Ignis warily. “He was just about to leave.”

Ignis doesn’t believe that for a second, and from the look on Lasalle’s face, it comes as a surprise to him too. Lasalle gets to his feet anyway, smiles a languid smile.

He’s tall, graced with a chiselled jaw, broad shoulders, and glittering flint-grey eyes—the most beautiful Ignis has ever seen.

“Nice to meet you.” Lasalle does a half-wave, voice lazy like smoke. His sandy brown hair is a mess. His shirt is askew. It’s a rather expensive-looking shirt, too, in a deep mauve that clashes spectacularly with the neutral tones of Noctis’ apartment decor.

“Likewise,” Ignis says, and even though he feels absolutely blindsided, he automatically adds: “You _are_ welcome to stay for dinner, if you want. Though, you might have to fight Noctis for the fish. It’s his favourite.”

Lasalle snorts, and Noctis gives him a shove. ”Nah, I’m pretty sure I need to go. I’ve got an errand to run anyway. I’ll leave you two alone.”

He leaves, grabbing his discarded jacket and car keys off the floor before heading out.

The fish is over-salted. But Noctis doesn’t say anything.

Ignis spends the entirety of dinner thinking of that huge grin plastered on Noctis’ face, thinking of Noctis pressed up against Lasalle on the couch. Thinking of how the smile had slid off his face as soon as Ignis had walked in.

“Thanks, Ignis,” Noctis mumbles to him, later that evening.

Ignis doesn’t know if Noctis means for dinner, or for something else.

It doesn’t take a long time for him to realise he’s jealous.

 _Gods_ , he’s _jealous_.

Everything in him hurts from how jealous he is. And he knows it’s incredibly petty and selfish of him, because as much as he wants happiness for Noctis, he doesn’t want that happiness to come from a stranger who knows _nothing_ about how Noctis used to scream in his sleep every night for a year after waking from a coma as a child, about how Noctis once misplaced his toy carbuncle and cried for three hours until Ignis found it wedged between a pair of shoes in the King’s wardrobe because they’d played hide-and-seek two days prior, about how Noctis prefers the colour of the sun’s light in the early hours of the morning even though he never wakes up early enough to catch it at the right time, about how Noctis is deeply in love with the night sky.

But Noctis _is_ happy. And it’s not like Ignis is incapable of keeping his jealousy to himself.

They see less and less of each other. Every afternoon, Ignis’ phone gives him variation after variation of the same message: _Don’t cook dinner, don’t wait up, I’ll be back late. I’ll be safe. He’ll drive me home. Sorry._

His days start to blend into each other—it’s almost like he’s functioning underwater. His mind does a funny thing where it fogs over. Every text he gets from Noctis is a thinly veiled reminder of what’s happened: Noctis has found someone else.

It’s enough to make him feel inferior. It’s enough to make him feel replaced.

There’s nothing he can do except text back variation after variation of _I’ll see you tomorrow, it’s fine, I’ve left a box of breakfast muffins on the counter for you. Please don’t stay out too late. Please don’t be sorry._

“Hey,” Noctis says to him one night, several weeks later, when Ignis is in the kitchen pouring chicken stock into a saucepan. Noctis is leaning against the counter and looking strangely close at him. “You wanna watch a movie tonight?”

Ignis stirs the pot with one hand, but keeps his eyes trained on Noctis. “Not going out tonight?”

“I—” There’s a frown on Noctis’ face and he’s fidgeting like he’s afraid of something. “No. I’m not. Ignis, we haven’t… I haven’t been spending time with you. I miss—” Noctis stops short for a moment and purses his lips. “I don’t always have to be with him. I want to be with you sometimes, you know?” He sounds tired.

Ignis feels an uncontrollable knee-jerk reaction in the form of a spike of rage. “You don’t have to spend time with me out of pity, Noctis. If your heart’s not in it—”

“No! No, Ignis, I don’t—!” Noctis stumbles over his words and Ignis splashes some of the hot stock over his fingers and swears at the same time Noctis says, “I just want to be with you tonight, am I not allowed to… to want that?”

Ignis wipes his hands on his shirt, and he mourns the fact he didn’t choose to wear an apron before starting dinner. He trains all his attention on the stove and he can hear Noctis breathing, fast and loud, over the bubbling of the soup in front of him. He reaches for the starchy noodles on the side, gestures toward the TV in the living room with his free hand. “Go find a movie to put on, then. Dinner will take another fifteen minutes.”

“I… okay.” Noctis sounds pacified, but then he mumbles, “I was thinking we could go to the cinema, actually. After we eat.”

Ignis drowns the noodles in the boiling soup. “What’s playing?” he asks, already feeling himself getting side-tracked.

“I don’t know. Didn’t check. I just wanted—yeah, I’ll check now.”

Ignis glances at Noctis and sees him tapping away at his phone.

Noctis pays for the food and the movie tickets. He buys himself three cinnamon sugar donuts. Ignis wants popcorn. Noctis adds popcorn.

In the darkness of the theatre, Ignis spends the entire time thinking about how much it hurts just to be there, sitting next to Noctis, hands curled into fists in his lap, clenched painfully tight. He wonders if Noctis is hurting, too.

Noctis comes home with a bruise on his face. Split lip, cleaned up as best he can. But Ignis can see how swollen it is, and he can see how his right cheek puffs up angrily.

“Your face,” he says, and he feels alarmed enough to step forward and well into Noctis’ personal space, but he’s ashamed when he realises that he can’t quite bring himself to do much else. Perhaps if he can pretend not to care too much, he can pretend this doesn’t hurt him at all. As soon as he thinks it, he feels like a fool.

Noctis turns his body and moves away from Ignis like he doesn’t want to be scrutinised. “We got into a fight,” he says, offhand, his eyes darting across the hall to his bedroom door like he wants to hide.

Ignis knows he ought to feel some sort of vindication, or some kind of triumph. There’s only a dull ache in his heart and a bitter sadness over the fact that Noct would sooner choose a partner who would resort to violence over anyone else. He offers a small nod.

“How much did he hurt you?”

Noctis winces, but he smiles dully. “He looks way worse, don’t worry.”

“You know he can be charged with assault, Noct.”

“So can I. It wasn’t a one-sided fight.”

Ignis frowns. He doesn’t understand why Noctis wants to play defender to Lasalle, but if he wants to, Ignis can and will respect that. “How badly did you hurt him?”

Noctis shrugs.

“What did you fight about?”

Noctis eyes Ignis, gaze lingering for just a moment too long before he glances away. “He wasn’t— I told him there were things that were more important to me. Than just him. He wasn’t ready to accept that.”

It’s obscene and it’s vulgar and at first he refuses to believe it.

He feels sick. He wants to throw up. It cannot be real.

But then he taps the _play_ button on his phone and watches. And when it starts, he cannot look away.

He knows it’s dirty and immoral, _repugnant_ , but he can’t help it. He watches the video in its entirety, feeling every bit a self-destructive voyeur. Onscreen, Noctis’ face is twisted in an expression of pleasure and naked desire, and every movement elicits open-mouthed sounds that Ignis has never heard his prince make before. Lustful, desperate cries that Ignis _knows_ he will never be able to forget.

The worst part is, Ignis recognises the couch they’re fucking on. They’re in Noctis’ apartment. In the living room.

He cannot explain how he feels—he’s angry, horribly angry. And when he feels himself getting hard from what he sees, he’s more than livid.

When the scandal hits, the damage done is immediate.

The news breaks at dawn; the video is shared up to fifty thousand times across half a dozen social media platforms before anyone at the Citadel gets wind of the situation. The takedown order comes much too late.

Ignis is called in to assist with the media fallout, but he’s never seen the Citadel react to an emergency with such headless panic. Everything feels like a lie, like a terrible dream—and yet a nightmare, he thinks, wouldn’t come anywhere _close_ to this.

The culprit behind the leak is obvious—Noctis wouldn’t do this to himself.

The fallout is immense.

King Regis has had no choice but to press charges. Lasalle is arrested.

Noctis isn’t consulted. Noctis is nowhere to be seen.

He’s angry, on behalf of Noctis, on behalf of King Regis. And all he wants to do is to destroy Lasalle’s life.

But it’s many days before things even start to wind down at the office, and almost a week before Noctis decides to finally leave his shelter at the Citadel and stop hiding.

Ignis is the one Noctis picks to drive him back home.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology comes in a rush, and it sounds so fearful and desperate. There are tears in Noctis’ eyes, there’s an emotion scrawled sharp and fraught on his face. But Ignis cannot read it, his mind doesn’t let him—everything is a blur when it comes to Noctis. But he looks _so afraid_ , and Ignis’ anger only grows.

“There is _nothing_ to apologise for. None of it was your fault. You didn’t leak the video, you didn’t do anything wrong. He had no right.”

Noctis is silent. He slowly shakes his head. “I… it’s not why I’m apologising. I’m sorry you had to see it.”

“I didn’t.”

“You don’t have to lie, Ignis.”

They arrive at the apartment in time to see the deep red sunset over the city skyline. The light filtering through the glass bathes them in a ghostly crimson. Noctis looks so fragile and ethereal that Ignis has to turn away.

“Do you need me here?” he cuts through the thick silence.

“Do you want to be here?” Noctis asks. He sounds tired. He sounds dismissive, like he thinks Ignis has had enough of him and is ready to bolt.

 _Of course I do,_ Ignis wants to say, feeling that terrible anger rear its head. He knows it’s the wrong thing to feel. But he doesn’t want to be anywhere else. _Of course I want to be here._ But then his eyes cut to the corner of the living room, and he remembers how Noctis had let Lasalle fuck him on the couch, he remembers the sounds Noctis had made, filthy and impassioned, and his mind blanks.

Noctis smiles at him, then. A small, sad smile. And Ignis knows his expression is written clear on his face. “Go home, Ignis,” Noctis says, quiet and yielding. “I’ll just go to bed.” There are such deep, dark circles under his eyes, and Ignis feels the sudden urge to swipe his thumbs across them to try to smudge them away.

Instead, Ignis leaves.

Several weeks later, Lasalle is released on a full pardon from Noctis himself. It happens discreetly. Lasalle is never seen in Insomnia again, so Ignis believes he’s been made to leave the city. It’s not like the state to be so forgiving, Noctis must have been persuasive enough to have the authorities let him go.

Not that Ignis hadn’t seen it coming. He knows Noctis, knows he isn’t the type to let even someone as vindictive as Lasalle suffer under the heavy-handed justice system of Insomnia. Where royalty is concerned, a crime like that would pay tenfold.

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth nonetheless, and that night, he doesn’t know if he can handle seeing Noctis at dinner. All he wants to do is blow off steam.

There’s a sizeable gym at Noctis’ apartment, on the first floor.

That night, he doesn’t even go upstairs.

He spends an hour killing himself on the treadmill, and he’s well into pushing himself to screaming on the bench before Noctis calls him.

“Where are you?” Noctis asks. There’s a note in his voice Ignis can’t place. “Are you coming over?”

 _No_ , Ignis almost says. _No I’m not_. He entertains the thought of just hanging up without a word. But he’s not cruel, and Noctis deserves better.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out.

He showers and wraps himself in his work clothes and he leaves the gym, takes the lift up to the twenty-eighth floor, hair still dripping wet.

As soon as he steps into the apartment, he sees Noctis standing out on the balcony, staring out into the night. And when he goes to join him, goes to stand by the balustrade, Noctis barely reacts. Noctis doesn’t even turn to look him in the eye. It’s enough of a giveaway: Noctis has been crying.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, again, and it takes him a long time to speak up again. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to make something?”

“No.”

Ignis stands there a moment longer. Noctis is tricky with emotion. This, he’s always known. And he knows Noctis wants him there; he reads it in the way Noctis stands, rigid and insecure, but passive. All the same, he gives Noctis a way out. “Do you want to be alone? I can—”

“I don’t.” Noctis turns to look at him, expression laid bare. “I don’t want to be alone. Please don’t leave.”

“Okay.” Ignis nods. He’s about to say something, but Noctis cuts him off.

“I don’t think you realise—fuck, I only ever _wanted_ _—_ ” He pauses, as if afraid to say what he means to say. “I’m not good at this, Ignis. I’m sorry. I’m not.” He swallows. “I know I’m too fucking late, but. It’s just. It’s just… please, Ignis, I need you to know. I need you to know, okay? It’s _you_. It’s _always_ been you. You know that, right? Always you. _Please_.”

The wind picks up, the air is thick and humid. There’s a storm in the distance; Ignis can see a heavy blanket of cloud sitting above the city, lit up by Insomnia’s perpetual light pollution. He can smell the rain on the breeze. But he thinks maybe the rain is heading in the other direction. It’s moving away.

Ignis’ heart slows to a steady rhythm for the first time in a very long time. Noctis has always been his weakness. Always, always. But Noctis is also his strength. So he says, very quietly: “Noct. Noct, will you let me stay the night?”

The first time Ignis falls in love with a boy, he hadn’t meant for it to happen.

It ends painfully, without closure, and leaves his heart bleeding for a very long time.

What he realises, slow and dawning, is that his heart could never belong to anyone else after that.

He takes Noctis to bed that night. And Noctis lets him.

And when they come together, it’s furious and wild. And Noctis wears his heart on his sleeve, and he holds onto Ignis painfully tight, sobbing out apologies and crying out Ignis’ name in the dark. And Ignis lets him break down, lets Noctis smear wet tears against his face as he kisses Noctis over and over.

It’s reckless and unrelenting—every pent-up desire, every lost moment, every ounce of longing, crashing into them like a terrible wave. There’s a familiarity, with every movement and every gasp, and it’s like they’re tracing old lines on a map. And there’s danger, too. Ignis knows this. There’s always danger, with Noctis. But maybe he’s fine with that. He’s fine with the pain and the heartache and everything in between. He’ll take Noctis any way he can. He’ll settle for less than love, if that’s all Noctis can afford to give.

It’s this thought that cocoons him, as he moves inside of Noctis, slow and deliberate and sure. It’s this truth that follows him, as he watches Noctis throw his head back and exhale something low and sweet and incomprehensible when Ignis finally brings him over the edge.

“Don’t regret this in the morning,” he whispers to Noctis, a little while later, when Noctis is there in his arms, fast asleep. “Don’t regret this.”

When morning comes, he awakens with his mind clearer than it’s ever been. Sunlight streams through open blinds and everything is crystalline bright.

It’s the smell of blackened toast and overcooked eggs and burnt coffee that stirs him, the sound of movement outside that coaxes him out of bed and out of the messy bedroom and into the hall.

It’s even brighter in the living room. His eyes take a moment to adjust.

“I fucked up breakfast, just so you know,” Noctis tells him, sheepish and apologetic. He’s standing in the kitchen, dressed in Ignis’ shirt from last night; it’s unbuttoned and several sizes too big, and it hangs off his frame precariously. “I tried, though.”

The sunlight coming in from the balcony fills up the entire apartment and paints streaks of gold and orange in Noctis’ hair. He’s sleep and sex rumpled, but he also looks fully awake. He looks real, he looks beautiful. He’s the boy Ignis has always lived for.

Ignis steps further toward the kitchen. His heart still beats that steady rhythm in his chest. He takes in the small mess on the countertop, in the kitchen sink. It’s nothing he can’t fix. “Thank you for trying,” he says to Noctis. He takes a breath, and he takes a chance. “Would you like to try again? Together?”

He means breakfast. But he also doesn’t mean that at all.

Noctis fiddles with the hem of Ignis’ shirt. There’s a hopeful smile on his face. It’s sweet and honest and unmistakable. “Yeah,” he says to Ignis, eyes bright and alive, “Yeah, Ignis, I’d like that. I’d really like that. Let’s try this again.”

The first time Ignis falls in love with a boy, he gives the boy his entire heart, and he never takes it back.


End file.
